TSAR'S SECRET POLICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14145, 21 August 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

TSAR'S SECRET POLICE.

INQUIRY ORDERED INTO SENSA-

TIONAL STORY. A great sensation has been caused in French political circles by a. series of remarkable charges- made by -M. Vladimir Bourtzeff, the well-known Russian exile and writer, in Le Journal and L'Humanite, recently.

M. Bourtzeff, who unmasked the traitor Azeff to the French Minister of Justice, now claims to have made a much more startling discovery than even that of the Azeff affair. He says that he has positively identified General Harting, who is the head of the Russian secret police in Paris, with the sham revolutionist and "agent-provocateur," Michel Landesen.

Landesen in 1890 was condemned by dofault by the Seine Tribunal, and sentenced to five years' hard labour for organising a dynamite outrage, with the object of assassinating the Tsar Alexander in. Landesen, who was discovered-to be the chief of a gang of persons engaged in manufacturing bombs, heard of his coming arrest, and got away before it could be effected. He disappeared for nearly 19 years, not only from the ken of the French police, but also from that of the Russian revolutionists, who then discovered that Landesen was a spy and an agent of the Russian secret police, into whose hands he had betrayed dozens of people. m. bottrtzeff's story. Now, on the eve of the Tsar's visit to Cherbourg and Cowesa fact that makes the communication all the more startling— M. Bourtzeff proclaims, that the escaped convict and General Harting, whose duty it would be to protect the Tsar, are one and the same person.

In a letter to M. Briand, the French Minister for Justice, M. Bourtzeff says: — " The criminal your police have lost sight of all these years is M. Harting, who has his office at the Russian Embassy in Paris, who is the friend and confidant of M. Barnard, chief of the French detective police, and whom your Government lately decorated with the Legion of Honour.

" Landesen's real name was Abraham Heckelmann. 'Landesen,' otherwise Harting, has had sundry —such as Petroffsky and Biere. I, therefore, ask you to give instructions for the arrest of the said Sieur Landesen-Harting-Pelroffeky-Biere, etc. _ I am at your disposal. Monsieur lo Ministre, for furnishing you with any further information you may require."

In an interview M. Bourtzeff stated that after Landesen's disappearance he heard that ho was employed in the Tsar's personal service. But the reports were too vague. Two years ago M. Bourtzeff learned that the long-lost Abraham was in Germany. Next he was told that M. Harting, who had become chief of the Russian secret police in Paris in 1905, was an old agent provocateur. But it did not occur to him that Harting and Luidesen were one and the same. Only in January and February did M. Bourtzeff, as he alleges, come by his positive proofs, partly in the form of letters:, written by "Landesen" and by "Harting." " ■'",.; PROMPT GOVERNMENT ACTION. M. Clemenceau, the French Premier, issued a statement to the effect that an official inquiry would at once be made into the amazing allegations of M. Bourtzeff. If this inquiry shows that General Harting and Landesen are really identical, then Harting will be expelled from France and his name struck off the roll of the Legion, of Honour.

In the meantime, inquiries at the Russian Embassy in Paris show that Harting, who was promoted to the rank of general by the Tsar himself, ceased to be head of the Russian secret police in France last February. It was also stated that he had returned to St. Petersburg.

The Embassy officials declare M. Bourtzeff's story to be ridiculous. They noint out that before coming to Paris M. Harting had been chief of Russian police in Berlin, and that he was much, respected in the latter city. His family history was well known, and as a general in the Russian army and a Councillor of State lie war above suspicion.

In French police circles the same view prevails, and a high official at the prefecture of Police, in an interview with the Petit Parisien, stated that M. Bourtzeff had already been expelled from England, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium, and the Russian Government had asked France to expel him. The official thought that fear of expulsion before the arrival of the Tsar had induced Bourtzeff to try and secure immunity from special police precautions, and this extraordinary accusation is his method of doing it.

In Government circles the impression is that the whole affair has been organised in order to complicate France's relations with Russia, at the moment of the Tsar's visit, and if M. BourtzefFs allegations are not proved he will no longer bo tolerated in France.